Respect the Fates of Others, Let Go of the Savior Complex

The small cherry-pink mouth pursed slightly. Yae Sakura raised her head and calmly replied, "I was seeing Mo-kun off."

Yae Guji was stunned for a moment, wondering who this "Mo-kun" Yae Sakura was talking about.

But after much thought, he found that there was no such person in the village.

Neither in the past, nor among the outsiders who had just arrived yesterday, was there a guest with the name "Mo."

"Who is Mo-kun?" Yae Guji asked.

"He's the outsider who came to the village yesterday."

"Black hair?"

"Mhm."

"What is his full name?"

Yae Guji realized that the "Mo-kun" Yae Sakura was talking about was the black-haired youth from last night.

Yae Sakura shook her head, "I don't know. Mo-kun didn't reveal his full name."

Yae Guji was a little disappointed. He glanced at the path down the mountain and asked again, "Why did he come to the shrine so early in the morning?"

Yae Sakura answered truthfully, "I happened to meet Mo-kun when I was cleaning the steps below the shrine. After a conversation, I learned that Mo-kun knows a little about medicine, so I brought him to the shrine to treat Rin."

"Father, Mo-kun said that although Rin's illness cannot be cured, as long as she receives treatment, she can sustain her life..."

Yae Guji waved his hand and said nonchalantly, "He can come if he wants. I don't care about that, as long as he doesn't do anything that violates the rules of the village."

"Thank you, Father."

Yae Sakura bowed her head and sincerely expressed her gratitude to Yae Guji.

Allowing Li Mo to enter and leave the shrine freely meant that whenever Rin had a problem, she could receive timely treatment and no longer have to endure the torment of illness.

She could go to school and play like a normal child.

And they could go to the cherry blossom forest in the village together to admire the cherry blossoms and have a picnic.

At the thought of this, Yae Sakura couldn't help but smile gently.

But in the next second, Yae Guji's question made the smile on Yae Sakura's face freeze—

"By the way, you haven't seen any demonic beasts entering the village recently, have you?"

Yae Guji looked down at Yae Sakura, who was still bowing, and pondered.

"..."

"..."

"No, I haven't," Yae Sakura held her breath for a moment and reluctantly lied.

Yae Guji walked towards the main keep. Before leaving, he instructed, "I'm going to the main keep to prepare for the festival. There will be demonic beasts coming to interfere during the festival. You should carry the spiritual blade with you these few days. Do not hesitate when you see a demonic beast."

"...Yes."

Hesitate...

Yae Sakura was at a loss.

From a little girl who was afraid of even stepping on an ant, she had now become someone who could kill any beast other than humans without any distraction, cold and ruthless.

Yae Sakura constantly told herself that what she killed were demonic beasts, monsters, and enemies that would harm her friends and family.

But what if the so-called demonic beasts were all humans?

Yae Sakura thought of Li Mo's hypothesis: the sacrifices used in the festival were never demonic beasts or animals, but everyone in the village.

Then what had she been doing all this time? Wielding a blade to extract their tendons, cut off their limbs, and watch them wail in agony and convulse?

"..."

Confusion, bewilderment, and... disgust.

She hadn't thought about it too much before. After thinking about it deeply, and replacing the struggling beasts before their deaths with the familiar faces of the villagers, she realized just how cruel she had been.

An innocent little girl, holding a blade, dismembered her partners with whom she had just been talking about the future yesterday, and the elders who had taken care of her.

Yae Sakura immediately covered her mouth with her hand, her stomach churning. She forcibly suppressed the feeling of nausea.

If Rin knew about this, if Mo-kun verified this matter...

Yae Sakura immediately fled the scene and came to a water vat, plunging her head into the water.

The icy feeling swept through her mind, and wet drops of water flowed down her tender cheeks.

Her mood finally calmed down. But when Yae Sakura opened her eyes, she saw that the bottom of the water vat was suddenly filled with ferocious human faces.

"Why? Sakura, aren't we best friends?"

"It hurts... it hurts so much!"

The desperate faces of her friends who had disappeared in the past, swayed with the ripples, their cheeks cut in half from top to bottom.

Just like on the day they disappeared, Sakura had raised the cursed blade and cut off the demonic beast's head from the crown.

"Ah!"

Yae Sakura immediately pulled her head out of the water vat, lost her balance and collapsed on the ground, trembling as she looked at the water vat.

"I..."

"I..."

Yae Sakura buried her head, not daring to look directly at the ordinary water vat.

She gripped the spiritual blade even more tightly. For Yae Sakura, only holding the blade could give her enough sense of security.

She stood up, and Yae Sakura walked to the water vat again with her blade in hand. She mustered up her courage to look, but there was no human face at the bottom of the water vat.

Everything just now was just her own illusion.

When she came to her senses, Yae Sakura finally noticed that her left hand had been trembling, but the hand holding Sakura Blizzard had not wavered.

If it really came to the day of the festival...

What should she do?

Should she continue to kill the demonic beasts as she had done before, following everyone's wishes, and let them become sacrifices for the festival?

But... they were all living people.

But if she didn't do that, more people would die...

Rin also didn't want... to be abandoned by everyone.

She also hoped that her sister could become an outstanding miko...

Even if they are living people... even if they are living people...

Yae Sakura gritted her teeth and cut open the water vat with one slash.

A few blood-red cherry blossoms floated out from the cut.

The sharp Sakura Blizzard easily cut open the water vat.

Yes.

It didn't matter at all whether they were living people or demonic beasts.

As long as everyone, and Rin, could live happily and peacefully, it didn't matter at all whether she killed people... or demonic beasts...

Yae Sakura made up her mind and returned to Rin's room.

On the other side, Li Mo carried Chiyo's parents to the river outside the village.

Most villagers would not leave the village under normal circumstances.

As far as daytime was concerned, the outside of the village was not that dangerous, as long as they returned in time before sunset.

What's more, there was a small wooden house as a backup.

If an accident really happened and they didn't return to the village in time before nightfall, they just had to honestly stay in the small wooden house and wait for Yae Sakura's rescue.

Of course, if they couldn't even last for ten minutes and were killed by a ghost, that was another matter.

"Hmm? The vitality is still dissipating?"

Li Mo noticed that the vitality of Chiyo's parents was rapidly dissipating.

But he couldn't feed them with his own flesh and blood again.

First, it was not worth it. Without figuring out the source, providing flesh and blood for no reason would only accelerate his own pollution.

Second, he couldn't do it. He could save ghosts, but not people.

Li Mo glanced at the omamori on his neck. It was white, which meant that no invisible ghosts had appeared nearby, and his cognition was not disturbed.

If Chiyo's parents were still in a human state, then Li Mo could only watch their vitality dissipate.

"At this rate, they will probably turn back into demonic beasts in at most one day."

"I can't predict Yae Sakura's movements, but she is just a child, and her cognitive system is not yet mature. I can't leave the key choices to her."

"The best case scenario is that no matter how she chooses, I can unveil the truth and then complete the ritual alone."

Li Mo analyzed quickly.

He was not reckless enough to trust a woman he had known for less than a day, let alone the fact that Yae Sakura was not a woman, but a little girl who had been morally CPUed by the whole village since she was a child.

In Li Mo's eyes, she could only become a sharp weapon, helping him deal with some unimportant but necessary matters at the necessary time.

As for the ritual, one person was enough.

He had to remain calm and face the bizarre rituals of the Bizarre with composure.

No matter what happened in the middle, no matter what he encountered, as long as his eyes were always focused on the final goal, it was enough.

"Grandma Chiyo said that Chiyo's parents were brought into Yae Village when they were young."

"In other words... they have personally witnessed the desolate era of cannibalism, war, plague, hunger, and strife."

Only by understanding the other party's life can one make more judgments.

Thinking of this, Li Mo did not delay any longer and prepared to kick the two sleeping people awake.

"Time to wake up."

With that, Li Mo kicked them into the river, one person one kick.

The feeling of falling and suffocating instantly woke them up. They hurriedly opened their eyes, paddled their arms to the riverbank, grabbed the vegetation on the bank tightly with both hands, and then used all their strength to climb ashore.

"Phew... phew... how did I get here?"

"Husband, isn't this the river outside the village?"

"What?!"

The mother's reminder was deafening, and instantly the father jumped up excitedly, hurriedly pulling the mother up and preparing to return to the village.

"Quick! Let's go back before it gets dark!"

The two of them climbed in a panic, until they saw Li Mo calmly staring at them.

"Don't you have anything else to ask?" Li Mo blocked their way.

The father shouted anxiously, "How can we care about anything else! Returning to the village is the top priority!"

The mother asked with confusion, "Did you bring us here and throw us into the river?"

Different answers. Although both of them wanted to return to the village, their degrees were completely different.

Li Mo thought he needed to communicate with the two of them more deeply.

To observe the mental state of the "sacrifices."

But the father didn't seem to want to stay here. He directly passed Li Mo and was about to run back to the village.

The moment he passed by, Li Mo grabbed his neck and threw him against a nearby tree.

Crack.

The sound of a dislocated bone was particularly crisp.

Li Mo did not kill him. These two people did not have much vitality. If he caused any more damage, they would probably turn into demonic beasts on the spot.

But a necessary deterrent was needed.

Li Mo's right hand touched a nearby cherry blossom tree, and his fingers suddenly dug into it.

Hiss—

The cherry blossom tree was uprooted. Li Mo then casually threw it in front of Chiyo's parents and said coldly, "I ask, you answer."

"If you lie or remain silent, your end will be no better than this tree."

The two of them, who had enjoyed decades of peace, had never seen such a monster. The strongest person in the village could only lift a boulder half a body high.

And the cherry blossom tree in front of them was a full seven or eight people tall.

Was this guy a monster in human skin?

Under Li Mo's intimidation, Chiyo's parents became much more honest, standing quietly in place without daring to move.

This was a very good phenomenon. At least they could communicate.

Being able to communicate meant that the mental pollution was not serious. Of course, it was also possible that it was because he had just fed them his flesh and blood.

"Very good. It seems you have calmed down. Then I will ask the first question."

"Are you natives of Yae Village or outsiders?"

Mother: "Outsiders."

Father: "Natives!"

Li Mo: "..."

After the answers came out, Li Mo silently walked towards the father.

"You, what are you doing!? Ahhh!!"

The father collapsed on the ground, his right foot bent at a ninety-degree angle, mmm, forward.

"Indeed, the rules are dead. You can deceive me. But you need to know one thing: people can also be dead. If I kill you here, no one will know it was me."

"I don't want to hear lies from anyone's mouth again."

Li Mo took out a knife. It was stained with a lot of blood, caused by cutting open their chests before, but now it served as a great deterrent.

"I didn't lie! I didn't lie!" the father screamed in pain.

Li Mo's eyes were dead. The blade in his hand was close to his throat.

The father's expression did not look like he was lying, but Grandma Chiyo had no reason to lie. No matter what, it was impossible to misremember when she came to Yae Village.

After all, there was a big difference between two people and three people coming in. What's more, the missing person was her own son.

It was impossible for a normal mother not to know where her own son was born.

Even in a disastrous start like a vocational school toilet, she should remember it clearly.

Bang!

A collision sounded. Black and red blood flowed from the top of Li Mo's head to the tip of his nose.

"..."

Li Mo slowly turned around and looked at the mother holding a stone. After seeing that Li Mo was unharmed, the mother's face turned pale. The stone in her hand fell to the ground with a "thud," and she stammered, wanting to explain, "I... I... I..."

Her body was trembling instinctively, especially after seeing the wound on Li Mo's head heal quickly. An inexplicable fear erupted from her heart.

Was he really human?

"...Very good."

"You have missed your only chance to be saved."

"Good luck to you."

Li Mo said calmly to the two of them, then made way.

After a moment's hesitation, the mother carried the father with a broken leg and fled in a hurry.

Ten minutes passed. Li Mo still stood there, looking at the mirror-like surface of the water.

The him inside was more like a corpse that was starting to stiffen than a living person.

He reached out and touched the blood on the back of his head. It was a bone-chilling cold, even colder than the Bizarre.

"It's a pity. I was still thinking of a way to save them."

"It seems it's no longer necessary."

Black blood dripped into the river, creating circles of eerie ripples.

The reflection became turbid, until the full picture could no longer be seen, leaving only an empty, incomplete silhouette.

Li Mo wondered... would it be the best result if everyone died here?

Only a few people would leave. After leaving the bizarre Yae Village, they would have to return to the chaotic era of war where they couldn't even eat, and children were exchanged for food.

"The roads were filled with starving people, begging from door to door, the old and young supporting each other, their lives hanging by a thread, their faces ashen and their stomachs swollen, stumbling as they walked. In every village and every town, the cries of children and women were unbearable to hear."

"Fathers sold their sons, husbands sold their wives, the sound of crying shook the wilderness, unbearable to hear."

"Flesh and blood ate each other, the starving filled the wilds."

"Out of fear, the pollution took advantage of the weakness, and thus they deceived themselves. They didn't want to admit their identity as outsiders. As long as they forgot this identity, they could forget the experience of being treated as food when they were young."

As long as the outside world was miserable, no matter how terrifying Yae Village was, people would hear the legends and come looking for it endlessly.

To supplement the nutrients for the thing that sucked vitality.

This time, the source Bizarre didn't seem to have the purpose of killing people. It killed people only for the purpose of harvesting vitality.

"Ghosts act according to rules. Only humans act for a certain purpose. So the source Bizarre is very likely to have a high degree of human consciousness."

"Outsiders will lose their vitality bit by bit, and then when their vitality drops to a certain level, they will turn into demonic beasts and be offered as sacrifices to some existence."

"Perhaps, the source I'm looking for is in the festival."

"The sky..."

Grandma Chiyo described how Grandpa Chiyo had stared at the sky in amazement for a long time. What did he see at that time? What could make an old man who had experienced so much hardship and seen so many bloody scenes show a look of shock and fear?

Li Mo couldn't help but look up at the sky. It was as clear as a wash, clear and blue, like a veil unstained by dust.

The omamori was in a white state.

"What does it have to do with me."

Li Mo washed the bloodstains on his body and returned to Grandma Chiyo's house.

There was indeed a big gap between Chiyo's parents and Grandma Chiyo. After such a big thing happened, they didn't come to his mother to complain, or give his mother a kind reminder.

For example: there is a madman in the village.

"Big brother! You're back! Look, I made a bamboo dragonfly this morning."

As soon as Li Mo sat down, little Chiyo rushed to him excitedly and took out a simple bamboo dragonfly.

She spun it in front of him. The bamboo dragonfly danced in the air and fell to the ground after a few seconds.

"In my hometown, there is a kind of bamboo dragonfly. As long as you put it on your head, it can take you up into the sky to fly."

"Really? Where is big brother's hometown? I want to go see it! Such a small thing can actually take a person flying... big brother, you're not lying to me, are you?"

"I rarely lie."

"Emmm... then big brother, tell me the name of that bamboo dragonfly. If you can't say it, you're lying to me."

Li Mo paused, "Doraemon's Take-copter."

Little Chiyo tilted her head, her small eyes showing great confusion, and repeated Li Mo's answer.

"Doraemon?"

"What a strange name."

"By the way, big brother, this bamboo dragonfly is for you. Grandma said that you saved me when I fainted yesterday."

"Thank you. I'm going to eat now!"

Little Chiyo handed the bamboo dragonfly in her hand to Li Mo and then rushed out the door, full of vitality.

Li Mo silently examined the bamboo dragonfly. It was simple compared to the modern technology products in his memory, but in terms of craftsmanship, it was well-made.

He couldn't even find a few flaws. The bamboo was polished very smoothly.

But there was something more important to do now.

Li Mo put away the bamboo dragonfly and came to the gate of the courtyard. The threshold had been repaired, although the quality was not very good.

The peach orchard was destroyed. If they were attacked again at night...

That thing seemed to be in great need of vitality recently, so it was very likely to plunder life again.

Li Mo glanced sideways and saw little Chiyo sitting on a chair, happily eating the food her grandmother had made.

There was the person with the most abundant vitality.